


Hustle Night

by galpalaven, PeachyPansexual



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Gen, Oh My God They Were Roommates au, does poker exist in this universe?, fun fact: poker is descended from the game tarot used to be, it didn't become a method of divination until centuries later, whatever it does now
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 13:36:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12706065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galpalaven/pseuds/galpalaven, https://archiveofourown.org/users/PeachyPansexual/pseuds/PeachyPansexual
Summary: Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes you just end up with a nasty hangover and no recollection of the previous night.





	Hustle Night

**Author's Note:**

> While [vakarian_shepard](http://archiveofourown.org/users/vakarian_shepard) didn't actually help write this one (aside from the pointers on "is this in character?"), Nox is her apprentice, not mine. She's the one who got me into this fandom and this au has consumed my life. Y'all should check out her writing, she's fantastic.

Mhairi idly toyed with the second longest necklace they wore. Nox watched over her cards as they wrapped the chain around their middle finger once, twice, three times, then dropped it and laid their hand across the shoulder of tonight’s victim.  _Full house, high numericals_ , Mhairi hoped she remembered all the signals. It was a nice enough tavern that people were always on the lookout for cheats, so they tried not to use the same ones more than once. It was a plain enough tavern that when Mhairi had walked in alone, about an hour before Nox, they couldn’t have stood out more if they’d been announced by the Countess herself. Done up in rich, sheer reds and gleaming coppers, at 6′7 in heels, every movement was a statement.

And at the moment, that statement was, “Impress me, rich boy. Pay no attention to the literal magic user behind the cards over there, focus on the glamour charm nestled comfortably in my cleavage that’s at eye level anyway.” Nox had called that last bit overkill, but hadn’t actually tried to _dissuade_  Mhairi from wearing it. It went with the ensemble so well anyway, and she wasn’t gonna turn down an edge.

Nox rearranged her hand, then dropped another ten coins into the pile, looking only slightly smug. Her own outfit was considerably less flashy than Mhairi’s, but still enough to show that she had money to burn. Not that she was actually going to lose any, but that wasn’t the point.

“I raise. Feeling brave, pretty-boy?” The corner of her mouth quirked up as her eyes glittered almost dangerously in the candlelight. The target, less than affectionately dubbed “Mark Suckerberg” in their head, rose to Nox’s goading and dropped his entire coinpurse onto the table. He smiled up at Mhairi, certain that he’d impressed them with the bluff and just-above-decent hand, and they returned one that didn’t quite reach their eyes. Not that he’d noticed much above their collarbone. Mhairi, however, had had him figured out in less than a minute; a lecherous son of some minor noble with more money than he knew what to do with besides drop it on the table to impress women, and when that failed, he’d just grab at whatever he liked, which was apparently big and airheaded. They had slipped into the role easy enough and he had declared Mhairi his good luck charm. But judging by the look on their friend’s face, his luck had just run out.

“Go ahead and call it, sweetheart. I’m not scared of you.” he drawled. Nox returned the gesture, dropping the rest of her money in with a wicked grin that bordered on predatory.

“Whatcha got?” She asked casually, rearranging her cards again.

“Full house.” He slapped his cards down and started reaching for the pot.

“Ah-ah-ah, I don’t think so.” Nox spread her cards triumphantly. “Straight flush. I’d ask if you were up for another hand, but it looks like you’re tapped,” she said, scooping the gold into their bag. Mhairi disentangled themself from the mark, grateful to be done with the charade.

“Wait Ri, honey, where are you going?” he caught them by the wrist and they quickly broke his grip. For a moment he was worried that looks actually could kill.

“I wear this absurd, flashy getup for free drinks, _honey_ , something you can’t provide now. Have a good night.” They said, their tone practically chilling the air.

“Oooh, harsh. Better luck next time, buddy.” Nox said in mock sympathy, hoisting the bag over her shoulder. “Come on, Ri, lemme buy you that free drink.”

Apparently another of the patrons had taken offense to something one of them said and decided to put himself in their path, blocking them from the bar. He was big, broad, and clearly unhappy.

“I know you,” he glared down at Nox, “you cheated me out of good handful of coin a month back with some flashy magic trick.” Nox reached around to open the bag, hoping to calm him down with a refund. “Unless you’re planning on giving me that whole bag, I’d rather just see you in irons.” She readjusted the bag on her shoulder a little more securely, raised one finger and opened her mouth to speak–

–then shoved another nearby patron into him, caught Mhairi by the wrist, and ran out the door. The streets were mostly clear, but well lit and the nearby back alleys weren’t ones either of them were familiar enough with to try and make their way back home without getting hopelessly lost. A ruckus kicked up back in the bar, and a distinct cry of “Guards! Guards!” carried out onto the street. Mhairi didn’t wait to see if the two guards on a nearby corner heard or planned on responding, and conjured up a thick fog, made easier by the canal nearby.

“Okay, the guard can’t see us, but now we can’t see anything either.” Nox said, somewhere off to Mhairi’s right side, still keeping a firm grip on their hand so as not to lose them.

“Get on my shoulders.” Mhairi said plainly.

“What?”

“You should be able to see over the fog from that high. Climb up.” They knelt down so Nox could climb up easier, and once she was in place, they straightened up and took off at a run. Nox wobbled and yelped in surprise at the sudden burst of speed, but quickly gained her balance and shouted:

“Left!”

 

* * *

 

“Mhairi, your hair is soooo soft.” Nox said, playing with a stray lock.

“You’ve mentioned this. Gotta get down now, though. We’re home and you have the keys.” She grumbled up above their head and handed down the bag. “….Okay. But you set the charm.” More grumbling as Nox slid off of Mhairi’s back to open the door.

The shop was undisturbed save for where Faust had moved from where she was napping to where she was on the counter now, looking over the two of them disapprovingly.

“Don’t tell Asra?” Nox asked her. Judging by the way the snake retreated-no, _pouted_ -under her own coils, there’d be no convincing her. Nox shrugged and headed up the stairs. “It’s late. What do you say we head to bed and see about spending our prize money in the morning? Can’t believe he dropped the whole lot in, that was ridiculous.”

“Yeah, we did really good tonight.” Mhairi said, following behind her with Faust wrapped around one arm and frowning. “Like. _Really_  good.” Nox glanced back, brow furrowed. 

“Yeah. How many times have we done this now? Ten or eleven?” she asked, making her way past the screen in her room to change into pajamas. Mhairi paused partway through removing all their jewelry.

“Um. No, more like four, Sparks.” Mhairi’s head throbbed dully, and they suspected it had nothing to do with how their headband pressed their glasses to their head. It wasn’t the first time muscle memory hadn’t lined up with true memory for either of them, or the first time the inconsistency with what they knew and what they remembered had brought on headaches. Mhairi wasn’t going to push the subject if she wasn’t though. That said, if they didn’t know any better, they would have sworn Faust seemed anxious at their conversation.

“Huh. I could have sworn…” Nox trailed off while the two of them got changed. The tension hadn’t dissipated by the time they had. Instead, she flopped down onto her overstuffed mattress, forehead still creased. They were both sore and tired, but too unsettled to try and sleep just yet.

“It’s weird, isn’t it.” Mhairi started, and their head hurt again as they tried to fill the gaps in their own mind. They had the strangest feeling that they shouldn’t be pushing the subject, but couldn’t help it. Like picking at a scab that hadn’t properly healed yet.

“I’ve never seen snow.” Nox said, sitting up with her legs crossed. “Not once in my life. But I’ve had this dream? Except it didn’t feel like a dream, I remember it too clearly for it to have just been a dream.”

“Yeah?” They settled on the floor at the foot of the bed, looking up at her. “What do you remember?”

“Sitting in a window. It’s high up, and it’s the middle of the night. I’m watching massive puffs of snow drift down and drinking cocoa, except it doesn’t taste like any I’ve had, it–”

“It had cinnamon and red pepper in it.” Mhairi finished for her. It was the only memory that could make them homesick. “The moon was full, and the sky was so thick with clouds that it lit up the night. Sometimes I’d focus on just one flake until it fell too far down for me to follow.”

“Uh. Yeah. How…?” Nox looked shaken, almost like she was afraid of the answer.

“That was one of the only good memories I have of my childhood.” Mhairi answered, voice tight. Another one surfaced in their mind. A boat on waters clearer than they’d ever seen, a man with warm eyes and a gentle voice, and a word that made no sense to Mhairi, but conjured up bittersweet heartache. They had a feeling they were about to find out whose memory that really was. “Pippa.”

“Okay then. How’d it get in _my_  head?” Nox froze, apparently they were right. “What did you just say?”

“Pippa. What does it mean?” They asked. Mhairi’s head pounded in time with their heartbeat, but tried hard to ignore it. Nox’s frown deepened and she rubbed at her temples with a quiet grunt. Under the pain, they got the sneaking suspicion that the two of them had had this conversation before.

“It… my father used to call me that.” Her voice sounded distant. Sad. “How the hell do we have each other’s memories?”

“Why those ones specifically?” Another dull throb, and they both clutched at their heads. 

They hadn’t been picking at a scab. They’d been chipping away at a dam. Flashes of memories flooded their mind, some confirming that they _had_  had this conversation at least three times before. Images of the Lazaret flashed before their eyes, closer than they thought they’d ever been; processions of people in bone-white plague masks; ash-streaked sand; brilliant red and a blast of arid heat; violet eyes lined with worry as a lean figure passed their hand over Mhairi’s eyes.

“You two are gonna be okay. You just aren’t ready yet.”

 

* * *

 

Asra let himself in through the back room of the shop. He’d had just enough time to notice how quiet things were before a hard pang of anxiety hit him, rolling off of Faust in heavy waves. He scooped her off the floor and headed upstairs.

“What happened?”

 _‘Remembered!’_ her worried voice rang in his head and his blood ran cold. He took the stairs three at a time. Just past its threshold, his roommates were each frozen at the end of the bed. Nox had her arms wrapped around herself, fingers digging into her sides, trembling as she stared blankly through him. Mhairi was curled up on the floor, eyes screwed tightly shut, and hands fisted in their hair with a white-knuckled grip.

“How long have they been like this?” Asra asked, his heartbeat pounding in his ears as he tried to straighten them both up. He always hated doing this.

 _‘Not long,’_ Faust assured him. He took a deep breath and readied the spell to lock their memories away. Somewhere over the whirlwind of conflicted emotions in his head, a tiny incredulous voice shouted “I was only gone for six hours!”

 

* * *

 

Mhairi woke up slowly, head pounding out a message telling them to try and go back to sleep. Something shifted behind them and they looked down to see Nox’s arm wrapped around them, poking out of a pile of half a dozen blankets and pillows. They tried to remember all that had happened the previous night. Nox had beaten that noble prick at cards, offered to buy them a drink and then…

Nothing. 

They shrugged it off. One drink must have turned into another, then another, and so on. Mhairi rubbed at their eyes, hoping to alleviate the pain, and grimaced at their hands now smeared in kohl. They hadn’t had the sense to wash the makeup off. Nox apparently hadn’t even made it to her own bed and had crashed in Mhairi’s blanket nest instead. Mhairi did their best to disentangle themself from a dozen twisted blankets and one woman that was easily as hungover as they were. Possibly more so if she’d tried to match them drink-for-drink again.

Something smelled divine. Asra must have returned in the night and was cooking the three of them breakfast, judging by the sound of sizzling and tuneless humming coming from the kitchen. Mhairi dragged themself over to see him poking at something in a frying pan.

“Morning, sleepyhead!” He chirped cheerfully. Mhairi winced.

“Quietly please. Haven’t been this hungover in forever.” they said, pulling up a chair.

“Right, sorry.” Asra lowered his voice. “How’s Nox?”

“Grumbly. I don’t think she was ready for me to get up. I swear, it’s like sleeping next to an octopus.” They reached for their favorite mug and dropped a spoonful of their headache tea blend into it. Asra poured the water from the kettle that had almost started to whistle, leaving Mhairi doubly thankful for his attentiveness.

“Well hopefully she gets up soon, I’d say I outdid myself for breakfast and it’d be a shame if it got cold before she has any.” He set the kettle down on an old towel and returned to the frying pan. “I picked up some peaches, a couple pears, those dried fish strips you love so much, a couple loaves of pumpkin bread, and this bacon here. It was a little pricey, but the vendor said it was infused with honey and firewhiskey. It seemed like something Nox would like.”

“Asra, you’re a saint.” Mhairi said, sliding the chair across from them out with their foot. Nox had woken up and was bundled up under three of their biggest blankets so that not much besides her eyes could be seen.

“You might not say that if you knew I took the money for it out of your ill-gotten gains from last night. Faust told me you two were out playing cards again.” Nox grumbled something that sounded like “ _tattlesnake_ ” and then huffed a tiny laugh at her own joke as Asra tutted at them.

“Saint Asra, oh ye of patience and kindness, generous even when beset by us unrepentant sinners, blessed be thy name.” Mhairi raised their mug in jest and Nox mimicked the motion with her empty glass.

“Mm, amen,” she managed. 

“Well then, blessings of bacon upon you, my children,” Asra chuckled, bringing the last plate of food over to the table. “You two eat, I’ll watch the shop until you’re both done waking up.” They both managed to mumble thanks while they served themselves.

“You’re the best, Asra.”

He waved a hand in casual acknowledgement as he made his way down the stairs, not quite able to meet their eyes. Only Faust picked up on the ache in his chest or the pit of guilt in his stomach.

“I try.” He called back.

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted on my [tumblr](http://mypunkpansexualtwin.tumblr.com/post/167398769523/hustle-night), with a bonus look at their outfits!


End file.
